Congregational Life Centre
Our mission is to assist congregations to be more
effective in their ministry
Becoming Community
By Clair Woodbury
We introduced
the A-B-Cs of congregational development last newsletter with "A"
for "A Warm Welcome." Let's continue. "B" is for "Belonging"
and "C" is for "Creating Christian Community."
Everyone wants to belong. We are social creatures after all. All too many people receive a warm welcome in a congregation they are exploring, but after a time are unable to find a way to really get to know people to the point they feel they belong. That's where a conscious process on the part of the congregation to find out why people have come will yield great benefits.
Speed Leas and Roy Oswald make the point that people need to find friends in a congregation or else they will not stay. By friends we mean more than just casual social contacts, people we know by name or face and not much else. We mean people with whom we share areas of life in common, people we can talk to and feel we are really understood.
Small groups are one place where this can happen. Large gatherings tend to be dominated by an agenda with very little opportunity for people to actually get to know one another. It's all about the business and the busyness. In groups of ten or less there is time to get to know one another, particularly if there is a specific time for personal sharing.
Most who have been in a congregation for some time have a cadre of old friends. We can be warm and friendly to new people, but as far as having the time or energy to give to a new relationship, it is just not there. That is why it is so important to introduce new people to other new people. They are the ones who have come looking for the friends that will give them a sense of belonging. This may happen naturally over time, but in today's fast pace of life it needs to happen sooner rather than later. A process that helps friendship to get established can go a long way to creating the sense of belonging that people need.
That brings us to the "C" component - Creative Christian Community. When we feel we belong we recognize the congregation has made a difference in our lives. The call is then for us to reach out to make a difference in the lives of others.
There is a deep need in all of us to give ourselves to others in compassion. Finding ourselves is the inward journey of belonging. Making a difference in the lives of others is the outward journey that creates community.
Growing a strong vibrant congregation is a lot of work, and requires courage and creativity. That is true, but basically it is as simple as A-B-C: offering a warm welcome, providing a place to belong, and building a caring outward-oriented community.
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Congregational Life newsletter. February 2010. Volume 16 No. 3.